5th-graders Hit The Trail For Lesson In Pioneering Spirit-and Cooking

Hinsdale — Fifth-graders from Prospect School could count on neither groceries nor indoor plumbing when they gathered to cook a meal as pioneers did in the 1850s.

The kitchen duty was part of the kids learning about life on the Oregon Trail for their social studies class.

The pupils were divided into groups and delivered to eight homes. There they cooked ham and bean soup, drop biscuits and fried apples with bacon, then took the food back to the school for lunch.

To make butter, they took turns shaking a marble inside a 2-quart glass jar filled with heavy whipping cream. "It's hard; you have to be strong," Adrienne Lessard said. The mixture was then "washed" through a sieve with cold water. The pioneers would drink the leftover liquid-buttermilk.

"I understand how it was in the olden days; everyone worked so hard for everything," said P.J. Mitchell.